Obama acknowledges fracking concerns

President Barack Obama acknowledged concerns about natural gas drilling and groundwater contamination as part of a wide-ranging monologue on energy production at a town hall meeting Tuesday.

Obama has said natural gas should be part of a “clean energy standard” going forward but noted concerns about pollution. Although he didn’t mention hydraulic fracturing by name, the practice that has allowed new gas plays in the U.S. is increasingly controversial because of alleged links to groundwater contamination.

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“We have a lot of natural gas here in this country,” Obama said. “The problem is, is that extracting it from the ground — the technologies aren’t as developed as we’d like and so there are some concerns that it might create pollution in our groundwater, for example.

“So we’ve got to make sure that if we’re going to do it, we do it in a way that doesn’t poison people,” he added.

Obama also called out oil speculators for the continuing increase in oil and gasoline prices.

“It is true that a lot of what’s driving oil prices up right now is not the lack of supply. There’s enough supply. There’s enough oil out there for world demand,” Obama said.

“The problem is,” he added, “is that oil is sold on these world markets, and speculators and people make various bets, and they say, you know what, we think that maybe there’s a 20 percent chance that something might happen in the Middle East that might disrupt oil supply, so we’re going to bet that oil is going to go up real high. And that spikes up prices significantly.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 1:29 p.m. on April 19, 2011.